The Way I'm Left Here Silent
by mewling
Summary: Your past lies between the two of you, and there it will always stay. In the Aftermath of the war, Sasuke knew things could not be the same. [gen. mentioned character death]


series**naruto**  
disclaimer**(c)·kishimoto·masashi**  
rated**PG **  
genre**gen**  
words**1393**

**· **

** t h e · w a y · i ' m · l e f t · h e r e · s i l e n t **·  
by**mewling**

**· **

**summary**: Your past lies between the two of you, and there it will always stay. In the Aftermath of the war, Sasuke knew things could not be the same. gen. mentioned character death  
**notes**: I was trying to write SasuNaru. But somehow everything I write turns out gen.

·

Today, Sasuke lingers longer than he has to in Naruto's (no, say the Hokage's) office.

It's just reports and paperwork he delivers, and he leaves it on his desk with simple explanation. They exchange meaningless pleasantries, although neither of them are particularly good at this.

Today, the light spills golden from the wide open windows, so even the shadows are honeycomb and Sasuke thinks that maybe, maybe that makes it better. Naruto smiles as Sasuke leaves, and makes a motion as if to shake his hand.

But it is not always this easy to pretend.

What usually happens is this: Naruto doesn't say anything more than he can force out, and Sasuke lapses into awkward silence and they're both relieved when it's over.

And they'll pretend they never see each other when they pass in the streets; and when Sasuke slips and calls Naruto by his real name he'll act as if he hasn't heard.

·

Sasuke buys chrysanthemums from a funeral parlour and drapes them oddly over the Hero's Monument.

He thinks he should say something, probably. But he just can't shake the fact that it's a slab of stone, and that wherever Kakashi's body really ended up, it was far away from here.

This was the first place the three of them ever really worked together, Sasuke thinks. He shuts his eyes against the breeze and it feels almost like a memory.

But the flowers smell like incense, and somehow that's all he can tell.

·

"I love you," Sakura gasps, "S-so much, Sasuke, please!"

Objectively, perhaps this isn't such an odd thing to say during sex, but it sounds so much like what she said when she begged him not to leave all those years ago.

It's the same, he thinks, it's just the same.

Her legs tighten around his back.

·

He still thinks of Itachi.

He still tastes his brother's blood at the back of his throat.

·

No-one helps Sasuke when he rebuilds the old Police Headquarters: but then again, he never asks.

But he thinks it's better this way, to be revived by the last Uchiha. Fitting, that's the word.

It isn't an easy job, or a fast one. When he puts in an application to Naruto (the Hokage), he is surprised by the number of interested shinobi. Most are too damaged one way or the other from the war to be able to be put on difficult missions. Most are those looking for a bit of peace, but have trained their life for only one thing.

Rather like himself, Sasuke supposes. Naruto calls him the "Chief of Police", and Sasuke can't tell if he's mocking him or not.

·

Ino and Sai get married, and Sasuke is invited for some reason.

He spends it avoiding looking at Naruto across the aisle.

"We should too, don't you think?" Sakura asks after the ceremony. "Get married, I mean."

"Married?" Sasuke says in disbelief, "But I'm only —"

And here he stops, because he can't remember how old he is.

·

"I didn't know you and Sakura were dating," Naruto says next time Sasuke's in his office.

Sasuke jerks his head in surprise and accidentally meets Naruto's eyes. He didn't think he and Naruto had progressed from talking about the weather.

"We're not, Hokage" he replies, feeling awkward, and not just because Naruto's eyes are surprisingly hard. "We're just…" Sasuke wants to say fucking, but doesn't.

"She wants to marry you." Naruto says baldly.

"Well, she wanted to even when I hated her, didn't she?"

And this must be the wrong thing to say, because Naruto shutters closed again. But Sasuke thinks he looks like he wants to say something, and is holding back.

That's wrong, Sasuke thinks, that's wrong. You're Naruto, you shouldn't hold back at all.

·

Neji brings Sasuke a cup of coffee at his desk. Sasuke stares at it, wondering if it's spiked, waiting for Neji to leave. But he doesn't; in fact, he sits opposite and makes himself comfortable.

"Sergeant Hyuuga," Sasuke begins, hoping to get rid of him.

"Please, Uchiha," Neji smiles, "Dispense with the titles. We are old friends, are we not?"

Not, as far as Sasuke knew.

"Well," says Neji, "I _did_ have a hole put through my chest in an attempt to get you back. I think that affords some sort of…respect."

"You did that for Naruto, not me," Sasuke snaps, seeing no reason to hold back if Neji wasn't. No one mentioned Sasuke's absence to his face, like some secret pact had been made.

Neji's humourless smile remained. "Ah, perhaps. I miss him, don't you?"

"Who?" Sasuke asks suspiciously.

One of Neji's eyebrows rises gracefully. "Why, Naruto, of course."

Cryptic bastard, Sasuke thinks. He swigs his coffee viciously, and wishes it _was_ spiked.

·

Sometimes he wakes up screaming, but tonight is not the same.

He reaches up to his face and finds it warm and wet, and he thinks he's bleeding and he wonders who could've done this.

It's not until he holds his hand up to the moonlight and sees nothing that he realises.

It's not blood, it's tears.

·

Naruto is an awful, awful drunk, but that's something you could've guessed without the dead weight lurching on your shoulder.

Boozy breath puffs into your face. "…Saaasuuuuuuuuuke…"

"Oh gods that's disgusting," Sasuke says, averting his head.

"…you shouldn't…" Naruto mumbles, tripping over cobblestones.

Sasuke drops his head closer to hear.

"…you shouldn't have left."

Sasuke is quiet, and pulls Naruto along.

"Yeah," he says, only because he knows, knows that in the morning Naruto won't remember. "Yeah, I shouldn't have."

·

Sakura is crying, and Sasuke doesn't know how to stop it.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"Don't –" Sakura spits, "–don't say things you don't mean."

·

Sasuke skips a stone – four, five, six, seven – eight times across the lake.

"I don't know how you do that," Naruto says, peering after it.

"The thing is to actually skip it – not to just chuck it in."

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto puffs his cheeks. Sasuke feels the muscles in his face spasm into a grin, and he turns away to hide it.

"You know," Naruto says, as the stone he throws arcs in the air, "I was wondering how to forgive you."

Sasuke avoids looking as Naruto under the pretext of searching for suitable stone.

"Sakura kept telling me to, anyway. But – but you didn't really do anything wrong, did you?"

_Plop_.

"I mean – I don't know. It's just –" Another arching throw, and Sasuke doesn't think Naruto's trying to skip them at all.

"You were just doing what you had to do. What you wanted to. I should have trusted you. I shouldn't have tried to stop you. Yeah," Naruto says, like he's finishing a point. He watches the stone sink below the surface. "But that's just the past. And I can't be fucked caring about it, you know? I mean, I'm not going to forget, and things'll never be the same between us. But everything always changes anyway, and I don't have to do things about things that can't be done."

Sasuke watches Naruto pick up a round, bumpy stone from the ground. "You know, I'd say you were getting deep, but that didn't make any sense at all."

"But you get it, right?" Naruto threw the stone hard across the river.

_Plop_. "Fuck!"

"You suck at this," Sasuke says.

·

Sasuke traces Itachi's face on the walls with his fingertips when he's bored.

He's not always sure he gets it right.

·

Today, Sasuke is able to pull Naruto away from Ichiraku with a gentle tug and no words, but it is not always this easy.

What usually happens is this: the chef starts to meaningfully clean the countertop while Naruto lingers, lapping the soup from the bottom of the bowl. And Konohomaru is begging him to get back to work, dragging on an unsurprisingly immovable Naruto, and yelling at Sasuke for just sitting there and laughing.

No.

What usually happens is this: Naruto will suck the very last essence of broth from the chopsticks, and he'll stay because all he wants is there and he's got no reason to leave. And then Sasuke will get bored and miss his bed and want to leave.

So what will happen is this: Sasuke will get up and leave, but Naruto won't leave with him unless he asks him to.

·


End file.
